1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a hand grip designed to distribute a load across the width of the grip. More particularly, the present invention relates to a hand grip especially for use with exercise equipment, including a load distributing pull handle that may be attached to various forms of resistance.
2. Description of Prior Art
Hand grips are used with varying degrees of comfort in the operation of a variety of devices including grips for using exercise equipment, grips for uses on wakeboard ropes, tools and in construction equipment.
One type of hand grip such as the grips on an exercise machine as shown in FIG. 1 are uncomfortable. Those grips include a tricep rope with two grip stops at each end. The rope is held by a hollow tubular bracket that includes a hole which attaches to a cable pull exercise machine and the rope is passed through the tube. This design requires the user to maintain a firm grip on the rope to reduce the load incurred by the stops on the hand. During a weighted exercise, the grip stops apply load through the pinky finger and base of the palm for a tricep push-down style exercise or the index finger and thumb during a hammer curl style exercise. Since the user's grip typically cannot bear the entire load, the small surface area of the hand against the grip stop bears the load of the grip making gripping uncomfortable for the user, especially as the weight used during the exercise is increased.
Another type of hand grip includes beaded grips to combat the discomfort. Other prior art grips use airline cable instead of a braided rope and have the user grip a shaped handle in the form of a half sphere or a T-shape. However these grips require the flexible airline cable to be threaded through the user's fingers as the user grips the shape, which ultimately reduces the range of motion as the airline cable applies pressure to the inside webbing between the fingers. An additional problem with the grips shown in FIG. 1 is that the braided rope has peaks and valleys that may be helpful for the grip but catch on the hollow tube bracket as it slides through, resulting in uneven rope lengths and produces uneven weight distribution on the user's arms during the exercise.
Other grips use two cables versus a single flexion member to combat the discomfort of the grip, while still others use more conventional handles where the flexible cable is attached to both end of the handle grip and the hand is oriented in a generally perpendicular fashion to the weight cable (see, handle in FIG. 2). For example, a pulley type device or bearing surface for reduced friction is provided to try to maintain equalized resistance loading on the handle. Such grips also include a grip guard to protect the hand when a conventional handle moves in a motion other than perpendicular (see, grip guard and movement shown in FIG. 2) to the weighted cable. The later invention uses a circular track that allows the resistance cable to articulate around the handle. However, since the handle is connected at both ends, even with the grip guard or circular track to protect the hand, the grips do not center the resistance load when the exercise motion is in the direction of the weighted cable like those used in tricep push-downs, overhead tricep extension, swimmers pull, hammer curls, and the like.
Exercise devices often use a handle connected to a flexible member which is fed through a pulley. A weight attached to the other end of the flexible member or even the user's own force created by grabbing a second handle on the other end of the rope provides the rehabilitation weighted resistance. Such handles used include T-shaped handles with a rope attached to the center of the long axis of the handle to a more conventional handle where the rope attaches to both ends of the long axis.